The first phase of Khelo India games hosted outside the country have successfully concluded in South Africa after a fortnight of activity that saw local South Africans and Indian expatriates unite in volleyball, badminton, table tennis and chess tournaments.
Four other traditional Indian games – Kabaddi, Kho Kho, Carrom, and Satoliya/Lagori — are planned to take place soon in the second phase of the event, said Manish Gupta, chairman of the India Club, an organisation of expatriate Indians settled in South Africa.
India Club co-hosted the events with the Consulate General of India in Johannesburg.
“We gladly accepted the request of Consul General Mahesh Kumar to assist in coordinating the Khelo India events, and our executive members enthusiastically and passionately roped in a number of Indian expatriate organisations in South Africa to assist,” Gupta said.
“Our objective of inclusiveness saw us involving the South African Tamil Association in the volleyball tournament. Gauteng Malayalee Association took charge of the Badminton tournament while India Club arranged the chess tournament with an international grading and the table tennis as a national championship event with the local bodies for these sports,” Gupta added.
Kumar said Khelo India, which was launched by the Indian government in 2017, is dedicated to the development of sports in India.
“We want to take this beyond national borders because sport unites people in a way nothing else can”, Kumar said.
“Staging the first Khelo India abroad in South Africa further highlights the special relationship that our two countries have always shared, including at the people-to-people level, which was proven so well again through the support for these four tournaments from both the Indian diaspora as well as the local population,” Kumar said, adding that the hope was for other countries to emulate this.
Kumar said people had even travelled from the neighbouring states of Lesotho and Zimbabwe to participate.
The diplomat said the sports were selected because they were not in the mainstream of popular sports such as cricket or football, adding that a number of competitors were also nationals of other foreign countries living in South Africa.
Kumar said the cherry on top in coming years would be seeing players from South Africa travelling to India and Indian players coming to South Africa to play and participate.
“We are hoping that the Indian diaspora will also be able to participate in what can become another international event. Like we have the Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, Olympics and others, so maybe this can be a movement which might become the Khelo India Games,” Kumar said.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)